A glimpse into Crimson Reeds' mind: her father fucked her up. Big time. After a certain period of time of someone telling you something, no matter how untrue, it starts to become your reality. Lester Reeds spent eight years of his life telling his daughter that she was a mistake–a murderer and a fuck up. He would scream at her how she killed her mother and that it was her fault he could never hold her in his arms again until Crimson was pulling her hair out in tears.
Lester would drink himself senseless and then break down the door to Crimson's room. She would curl up in the corner as he flung lamps and chairs around her room until he passed out right in front of her. Secretly, every time he collapsed Crimson would pray to herself that he would be dead, but then he would snore and shatter her hopes.
It was a miracle she managed to survive until eight. Once she turned five he stopped shoving food in her room at night. In fact, when he stopped feeding her was when she dared to venture further than the ground floor of their house down to the basement. It was on her very first trip that she met and befriended the ghosts of Crimson Peak.
When Louis and Logan Reeds took in Crimson they did their best to undo their brother's harmful ways. It took three years to fully convince Crimson that she didn't kill her mother, but it was all undone in her second year when she came face to face with the thestrals that pulled the carriages to Hogwarts. She didn't think anything of them at first, but after some reading, she somehow came to the conclusion that she actually did kill her mother. If she could see the thestrals, then, that meant she saw her mother die as a baby. So, she must've been the cause of her death.
Now, you and I know that this isn't true, but to Crimson it was clear. Her father was right about this, and if he was right about this then what if he was right about everything else?
"Your mother held onto you as she died. Refused to let the nurses take you, she did. I couldn't hold her when she died because she was busy looking at you."
She was a fuck up. She was a mistake. If only she had been the one to die, then at least her mother would be alive, and her father would be happy. They would be living in that great big manor and it would be alive, and they would have another kid. But, instead, the universe chose her to survive. What made her so special?
The voices got super loud over the summer. Crimson thought it was the isolation, so she would walk through town to be with people. However, that only made her feel more alone, seeing all those happy people together. Nobody was with her, they simply surrounded her and that made it worse. It reminded her that even at Hogwarts she was alone–even though she wasn't–and that's why she liked smoking. It quited the voices. It left her with silence.
It was for that very reason that, after she ran out of drugs, she made a deal with Sirius for more. It was for that very reason, it only took her a week to acquire everything on that list which was really long, by the way. Did James even try to find this stuff?
"Jesus Christ, Stebbins, leave me the fuck alone!"
"I still don't know who that is!"
Crimson stormed through the castle with a burlap sack in one hand and a full bag on her shoulder. Quills spilt from her bag as she picked up her pace. Steven had been relentless lately with the mothering. He just cared too damn much and, right now, Crimson was having the worst week of her life. She needed this before she exploded.
"Black!" Sirius looked up from a perfectly pleasant conversation with James about Lily. He was never more relieved for the distraction.
"Rose Bud! What can I do for you?" Sirius's open arms seemed like an invitation anyone would want to be directed towards them, especially since he was starting to grow into his looks. His baby fat was fading and his hair was longer and more elegant than ever, accentuating his grey eyes that pierced souls and drew in every girl, no matter the year. Worst part was, he knew it. It was infuriating.
"I got your shit." Crimson tossed the bag at him, harshly hitting him right in the gut. He grunted slightly at the impact and reached out a hand to keep her in place.
"And I've got yours." Reaching into his bag Sirius pulled out a matching burlap sack, just slightly smaller, and tossed it to Crimson. "It was surprisingly difficult to find someone who–oh okay. Bye."
She had already run out of the Great Hall and back to her dorm. The other girls were most likely at breakfast as Crimson sat on the ground at the foot of her bed lighting one up. It was probably best that she didn't attend class, but her attendance rate was awful, and the new Head of Hufflepuff was starting to notice. Crimson missed the last Head who had completely stopped caring about doing his job.
"Miss Reeds, how good of you to join us." Horace Slughorn was just asking to get punched in the face. "We had just assigned partners for your next project, however as you weren't here you didn't get one. I guess you'll just need to be added to a group." The fattening professor placed his glasses on the edge of his smushed nose and mouthed various bullshit under his breath.
Crimson would care, but, at this point, Slughorn's dislike for her was to be expected, so she spent the time looking around the classroom at the groups. It looked like everyone got to choose their own partners as Lily was paired with Severus–smug bastard–and James was paired with Sirius. No teacher would willingly do that to themselves. Remus sat next to Peter and Steven sat next to another Hufflepuff Crimson had seen him talk to on occasion. He shrugged at her helplessly before raising a hand, perhaps offering to let her join his group.
"Professor! We'll take Crimson!" The entire class turned to stare at Sirius who had his hand up in the air proudly. James's head was resting against the table, asleep it looked like, and Steven was frozen like an idiot.
"Thank you, Mr Black, for stepping up. Hopefully, she shows up to actually do the work." Slughorn stopped short when he turned to see Crimson looking at him from hooded eyes.
It was all she could do to stop herself from rolling her eyes, an action Sirius had noticed she did a lot. Crimson adjusted the strap of her bag before moving to pull up a stool between Sirius and James. She smiled loudly at the uncomfortable silence broken only by the sound of wood against stone as she hadn't actually bothered to carry the stool to the table. The longest minute of everyone's life crawled by as she finally got adjusted. Even Slughorn was at a loss for words–oh wait nope, he's back running his mouth again.
"Why're you late?" Sirius leaned close to Crimson, able to smell her lavender body wash and see her bloodshot eyes. "Oooh!"
She elbowed him at his outburst and kept her eyes trained on the front of the room. James snored loudly to her left. "Get away. You smell like shit." A lie. Sirius smelled heavenly: a combination of a muggle cologne, burnt sugar (which she found odd), and Sleekeazy's that worked surprisingly well together.
"I could say the same for you." Another lie. All Sirius could focus on was the smell of grapefruit in her hair and smoke on her collar and parchment on her hands.
"Shut up." James groaned as he put his head up off the table. "If I have to listen to this all class–"
"Detention tonight, all of you."
All three of them had their heads down by the end of the period. Remus and Steven had taken notes anyway, they would be fine.
"Damn Rosie, another detention?" Steven rushed after her as she ran out of the classroom. "Are you high?"
"Barely," snapped the girl. Crimson stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to her only friend. "I don't want to talk about Sirius Black or James Potter or the fact that I have a detention tonight, so unless you can offer me something that isn't any of that, we both have a class to be getting to."
"Right."
Crimson turned tail and angrily climbed far too many flights of stairs to her Arithmancy class. What had once been one of her favourite classes had quickly become a burden. She regretted not taking Divination like the rest of her year as she quickly found out that the only reason she liked the class was because of the Prewett twins. Once a nuisance quickly turned into a welcome distraction and now that they were gone she was stuck counting numbers by herself with no one to make jokes with or poke fun at Professor Arcturus when she was getting full of herself. It didn't help that her little outburst last year had made her one of the professor's least favourite students.
"Miss Reeds, it's obvious to me that you clearly know the material," began the stuffy woman as she passed back her test (a perfect score), "but do you understand it?"
"I think I do," answered Crimson sarcastically, staring at her test.
"Maybe," hummed Arcturus. "I want you to go over your test with Mr Lupin. Make sure that you both are absorbing the knowledge and not just memorising it."
Ready to scream, Crimson turned to glance at the werewolf who sat on the other side of the classroom. She hadn't even noticed he was there until now. He kept his head down flipping through his test that was marked with a curly E and leaned back catching Crimson's eye. Suppressing a roll of her eyes, Crimson grabbed her things and moved from the far corner of the classroom to where Remus was leaning against the opposite wall.
"Professor wants me to check my test with yours," Crimson snapped, dropping the parchment in front of Remus who took a look at it.
"You got a perfect score…" Remus looked confused and started reading over one of the short essay questions. "Why did she–"
"'Cause she hates me, 'cause she's a bitch," Crimson rolled her eyes and snatched Remus's test from under his elbow. He had made a few minor mistakes, but it looked like excellent work. "I don't know why. I didn't do anything."
"I get it, Professor Sprout seems to hate me too," said Remus. "I don't know what I did wrong."
"Well, Professor Sprout is a bitch too," Crimson added. "I miss Professor Greenfield. He was much nicer."
"I think he was on drugs," Remus said thoughtfully. He was probably right. Professor Greenfield (what is with these last names?) had a habit of showing up to class late with a crumpled demeanour. Not an article of clothing was left unwrinkled and there was an odd bit of dust on the hems of all his jackets.
"Have you heard Dumbledore talk? It's like listening to a first-year with a sugar high."
"Aw he's just having a bit of fun," Remus chuckled. "Don't you like candy too?"
"Not like him."
"I doubt that. I bet you secretly have a sweet tooth."
Crimson smiled at him and nodded. "You aren't that bad Lupin."
"Thanks? Have fun in detention."
